Improving the signal-to-noise ratio in genome-wide association studies

Genet Epidemiol. 2009;33 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S29-32. doi: 10.1002/gepi.20469.

Abstract

Genome-wide association studies employ hundreds of thousands of statistical tests to determine which regions of the genome may likely harbor disease-causing alleles. Such large-scale testing simultaneously requires stringent control over type I error and maintenance of sufficient power to detect true associations. These contradictory goals have led some researchers beyond Bonferroni correction of P-values to an exploration of methods to improve the detection of a few true effects in the presence of many unassociated loci. This article reviews how Genetic Analysis Workshop 16 Group 5 investigators proposed to adjust for multiple tests while simultaneously using information about the structure of the genome to improve the detection of true positives.

Publication types

  • Congress
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Arthritis, Rheumatoid / epidemiology
  • Arthritis, Rheumatoid / genetics
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Genome-Wide Association Study / methods*
  • Genome-Wide Association Study / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Linkage Disequilibrium
  • Molecular Epidemiology
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide